Month: January 2022

Once again a brief summary would be helpful.  We find the tragic story of Cain and Abel where God accepted and loved the sacrifices of Abel more than those of Cain.  Instead of trying to explain why, because it doesn’t say why, although in Hebrews 4:11 we see that it was by faith that Abel brought his offerings.  We could assume the opposite, that Cain did not have faith, but that would be reading into the story a bit too much.   We find the first two people who were born and then the first fratricide, which will be a constant theme in Scripture and in history.  But God redeems, God forgives, God allows Cain to have a life and brings new life out of Eve.  

We then have that followed by the the story of Noah and the flood which culminates with all of the animals coming on board the ship and the riding out of the storm.   Noah was identified as being the only one righteous, and it is that distinction which allows him to be chosen to carry out the plans of the Lord.  There should be a lesson in there to pursue the righteousness of the Lord not because we hope to win a prize, like eternal life, but rather so that we can understand our lives as a response of gratitude for what God has already done for us.  

In John we find Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, an encounter that left his disciples dumbfounded.  You see the Samaritans and the Jews hated each other, but Jesus took the time to not only speak to the Samaritan woman, but also to empower her to be a disciple herself as she brought the news of salvation to her village, and as a result, many believed. 

We then find the healing of the man by the pool.  If you have a chance I would encourage you to join us as we take a journey to Israel in the Spring of 2023.  We go every 5 years.  We will see this pool and the exact location where this healing took place.  It is here where we see that the religious leaders, angry at Jesus for healing someone on the Sabbath and probably jealous that he is getting all the attention, begin to persecute Jesus.  

There is so much content in six chapters of Scripture that it might be helpful to at least give a brief outline of each of our readings.  Genesis provides us with two creation accounts, what I like to call the creation account followed by the details of the creation of humans.  Chapter 1 gives us the 7 days of creation, chapter 2 gives us the creation of humans, and chapter 3 gives us the betrayal of humans against God which continues as a theme throughout all of Scripture.  We will see time and time again that God provides and gives gifts and we betray God even to the most simple things.  But God remains faithful and even in the midst of God’s faithfulness we find that there are repercussions to our betrayal.  

There is a word for that betrayal, and it is called sin.  It is that sin which ultimately leads to our death, for as we read in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin are death.  What we gain from our sin is death.

When we get to John we find John’s take on the creation narrative which has everything to do with the Word of God being present from the beginning of creation and that Word becomes flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.  Talk about a heavy dose of theology!  This is our Christmas story that we just celebrated a week or so ago.  Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior, is God, fully God.  As disciples of Jesus Christ this basic truth has to be a building block to our faith.  He is not just a good person, or a prophet, or someone that we ought to emulate, yes he is all those things, but he is God.  Even the creator of the heavens and the earth.

That chapter then ends with John the Baptist calling Jesus the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and Jesus calls his disciples.  The second chapter contains Jesus’ first miracle, which is that of changing water to wine.  And then the third chapter has the visit of one of the main religious leaders of Jerusalem at the time who comes to Jesus at night and becomes a convert and one of his disciples.  

Welcome to the read through the Bible for 2022.  As we begin this journey together I can’t encourage you enough to stick to it in a way that you will be disciplined to reach Scripture each and every day.  Six chapters a day is not a small feat, but one that is doable and one that will be extremely gratifying once we are finished.  But even more important than the gratification we will feel when we are finished, are the lessons that we will be learning from Scripture along the way.  This will surely deepen our relationship with our Savior.  Let’s look at Psalm 119.

What a way to start the reading with Psalm 119.  The key to this Psalm is found in vs.105 where we hear the familiar words: “They word is a lamp unto my feet, and light unto my path.”  Throughout the entire psalm you have the writer, we think it is David, referring to his love for the laws of the Lord and asking for protection against those who would mock him because he is so in love with God’s laws.

A couple things there.  I have not found a time in my life where following God’s commands have created a scenario where people mock me.  When I was in college I joined a fraternity and I was the only one who did not drink alcohol in the fraternity and I never sensed a spirit of mocking me for that decision, but rather over time there was more of a spirit of my fraternity brothers trying to understand my decision and contemplating if that decision might also be a good one for them as well.  Have you ever found yourself where the decisions that you have made to follow God have been met with mocking?

But that is a consistent theme throughout this psalm and in Scripture in general.  A sense that those who follow God’s commands will be mocked, or to us New Testament terminology, will be persecuted.  It is no wonder that Jesus says blessed are you if you are persecuted and reviled for my sake.  As we make our way through this reading I hope that the theme of this psalm will come true.  That we will find ourselves longing and desire more and more of God’s word to play itself out in our lives and we would see the things of this world that used to have a hold on us gradually slip away.  

I want to leave you with this song that was important to me when I first came to know Jesus on January 14, 1986.